Eskimos

President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev have been urged to lift the "ice curtain" that divides Eskimos in Siberia and Alaska from each other. A letter sent to the two world leaders by the leader of an organization of Inuits, or Eskimos, in Alaska, Greenland and Canada says the cold war between the two powers has caused "the separation of our brothers and sisters in Siberia from the rest of the Inuit world." Hans-Pavia Rosing, a Greenlander who is president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, wrote, "For years we have been trying to establish contacts across the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia, but so far without any success.

It's official. Palm Beach County's Randy Fine now holds the Guinness World Record for continuous Eskimo rolls. A personal-fitness trainer who lives in Atlantis, Fine set the mark of 2,018 rolls on June 14, in Lake Osborne at John Prince Park west of Lake Worth. An Eskimo roll is a self-rescue technique that involves righting a capsized kayak without leaving the boat. Fine, 50, shattered the world record of 1,796 rolls with paddles that he achieved 18 years ago in Miami's Biscayne Bay. Guinness World Records notified Fine about the new achievement last month; it does not guarantee that he will appear in the annual book, however.

Canada's vast north, which stretches almost to the North Pole, is unlikely ever to support a three-star restaurant, but the region's foods, particularly those popular among the Eskimos - caribou, seal, hare and game birds - may soon be offered in restaurants in Europe and the United States. Some Northern fish like salmon and char (Arctic trout) are already sold abroad, but other staples are not readily available because of export bans and because Eskimos generally don't kill more animals than necessary for their own consumption.

Around and around and around he goes. There's no stopping Randy Fine when he decides to roll his kayak for glory. The personal-fitness trainer who lives in Atlantis embarked Sunday on the challenge of breaking his 1991 world record of 1,796 continuous Eskimo rolls with paddles. An Eskimo roll is a self-rescue technique that involves righting a capsized kayak without leaving the boat. Fine trained for months for his latest Eskimo roll marathon. At 8 a.m., with his wife Jeanine and four referees as official witnesses, Fine paddled out to 20-to-30-foot-deep water in Lake Osborne at John Prince Park west of Lake Worth.

Springtime, and the feeble rays of the midday sun spark a thousand tiny rainbows in the ice mist. The howl of Eskimo dogs tethered on the frozen barrens of Frobisher Bay is offset by the hoarse squawk of the giant ravens that steal their bones. At 10 below zero Fahrenheit, there is nothing to remark on the weather. Average. A snowmobile wends along the snowpack of Iqaluit's main street. The driver, an Inuit outfitted in fur, has a carbine slung from his shoulder. The wooden sled bumping behind his machine carries a fresh-killed seal.

In many cultures, what some might consider idiosyncrasies play an important role in everyday life. Many African tribes behead a cow to ward off evil. The blood of the beheaded cow is mixed with goat milk in a big bowl. Everyone in the tribe can drink a cup of the mixture to keep evil away. In Greece, women and men of all ages wear a transparent blue stone with an "eye" in the middle under their clothing. This stone is said to keep away evil. Homes are painted white with a little blue so evil spirits will stay away.

Re your May 29 article, "Anguish of war haunts many vets": If Pearl Harbor were attacked today, I would be angry because the law protects my rights as a human being. Though we still have dinosaurs like Archie Bunker or the KKK, most whites are either friendly or at least polite. But in the 1940s, this country treated any person who was not European like dirt, and for every atrocity aged vets can dig up from Japan's actions, one can dig up a counter-grievance about Western wrongs. Remember the Tuskeegee Project, in which the U.S. government deliberately injected blacks with syphilis in medical experiments similar to ones Nazi doctors did on prisoners in death camps?

Dear Dr. Donohue: Last winter, I got sick and felt stuffed up all the time. So I bought some nasal spray in order to breathe. I still have to use the spray every three or four hours, even though it is supposed to last 12 hours per spray. My doctor gave me a decongestant, which isn't helping. - A.E. Dear A.E.: Many nasal-decongestant sprays can be abused and easily rebound as a chronically stuffed-up nose. Also, chronic overuse of sprays will irritate nasal linings, adding to the problem.

Milk is hot. Models Christie Brinkley and Naomi Campbell and actress Lauren Bacall have been seen plastered with milk mustaches in all the top fashion magazines. They're part of a major campaign to remind women up to age 50 to drink at least three glases of milk a day. To get more facts on the classic dairy drink, call 1-800-9949-6455. The milk hotline is open 24 hours a day, and callers receive a free brochure on how milk can fit into a successful weight-loss program. Runway expose, done right Isaac Mizrahi is hot, too. The designer is the documentary subject in Unzipped, Douglas Keeve's revealing, hilarious film about the fashion industry, which happens to be everything that Robert Altman's pathetic Ready to Wear is not. At the Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Keeve described Mizrahi as a "holy terror," but quickly added that they remain best friends.

SACHS HARBOUR, Northwest Territories -- Because of the global anti-fur movement, the native community on this icy island near the top of the world hopes to transform the musk ox into the Texas longhorn of Canada`s western Arctic region. The government of the Northwest Territories will start test-marketing the arctic delicacy of musk ox meat this year with Canadian beefeaters in a bid to save the dying settlement on Banks Island. The anti-fur movement in the past two decades killed the world market for the white fox, whose fur created this community at the western tip of an archipelago that stretches to within 200 miles of the North Pole.

The Eskimos, or Inuit, about 155,000 seal-hunting peoples scattered around the Arctic, plan to seek a ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the United States, by contributing substantially to global warming, is threatening their existence. The Inuit plan is part of a broader shift in the debate over human-caused climate change evident among participants in the 10th round of international talks in Buenos Aires. Inuit leaders said they planned to announce the effort at the climate meeting today.

I was under the cold water, exactly where I expected to be. I just hadn't counted on being there so long. Figured I'd take to the paddle sweep and hip snap right away and be back breathing the warm air in no time. No such luck. My instructor, Susan, seeing my difficulty, gave me a hand and soon I was upright and frustrated. Mercifully, I wasn't alone. Most of the others in the Eskimo rolling class were in similar straits. We were all there for the 2000 East Coast Canoe and Kayak Festival in Charleston, S.C., to learn new kayaking skills and commune with fellow paddlers.

In many cultures, what some might consider idiosyncrasies play an important role in everyday life. Many African tribes behead a cow to ward off evil. The blood of the beheaded cow is mixed with goat milk in a big bowl. Everyone in the tribe can drink a cup of the mixture to keep evil away. In Greece, women and men of all ages wear a transparent blue stone with an "eye" in the middle under their clothing. This stone is said to keep away evil. Homes are painted white with a little blue so evil spirits will stay away.

Re your May 29 article, "Anguish of war haunts many vets": If Pearl Harbor were attacked today, I would be angry because the law protects my rights as a human being. Though we still have dinosaurs like Archie Bunker or the KKK, most whites are either friendly or at least polite. But in the 1940s, this country treated any person who was not European like dirt, and for every atrocity aged vets can dig up from Japan's actions, one can dig up a counter-grievance about Western wrongs. Remember the Tuskeegee Project, in which the U.S. government deliberately injected blacks with syphilis in medical experiments similar to ones Nazi doctors did on prisoners in death camps?

Springtime, and the feeble rays of the midday sun spark a thousand tiny rainbows in the ice mist. The howl of Eskimo dogs tethered on the frozen barrens of Frobisher Bay is offset by the hoarse squawk of the giant ravens that steal their bones. At 10 below zero Fahrenheit, there is nothing to remark on the weather. Average. A snowmobile wends along the snowpack of Iqaluit's main street. The driver, an Inuit outfitted in fur, has a carbine slung from his shoulder. The wooden sled bumping behind his machine carries a fresh-killed seal.

Canada's vast north, which stretches almost to the North Pole, is unlikely ever to support a three-star restaurant, but the region's foods, particularly those popular among the Eskimos - caribou, seal, hare and game birds - may soon be offered in restaurants in Europe and the United States. Some Northern fish like salmon and char (Arctic trout) are already sold abroad, but other staples are not readily available because of export bans and because Eskimos generally don't kill more animals than necessary for their own consumption.

It's official. Palm Beach County's Randy Fine now holds the Guinness World Record for continuous Eskimo rolls. A personal-fitness trainer who lives in Atlantis, Fine set the mark of 2,018 rolls on June 14, in Lake Osborne at John Prince Park west of Lake Worth. An Eskimo roll is a self-rescue technique that involves righting a capsized kayak without leaving the boat. Fine, 50, shattered the world record of 1,796 rolls with paddles that he achieved 18 years ago in Miami's Biscayne Bay. Guinness World Records notified Fine about the new achievement last month; it does not guarantee that he will appear in the annual book, however.

NEW YORK -- In one of the more unusual sidelights to the improvement in Soviet-American relations, Eskimos and explorers from the two countries plan a trek across the Bering Strait from Siberia to Alaska this year, the first time such a trip is known to have been attempted on skis since 1914. Plans for the trip were announced on Tuesday in New York by the team leaders, Paul Schurke, a Minnesotan who has made several trips in the Arctic, and Dmitri I. Shparo, a Soviet Arctic explorer. They said the two-month, 1,200-mile trip, to begin on March 1, was an effort to re-establish ties between Alaskan and Siberian Eskimos.

Dear Dr. Donohue: Last winter, I got sick and felt stuffed up all the time. So I bought some nasal spray in order to breathe. I still have to use the spray every three or four hours, even though it is supposed to last 12 hours per spray. My doctor gave me a decongestant, which isn't helping. - A.E. Dear A.E.: Many nasal-decongestant sprays can be abused and easily rebound as a chronically stuffed-up nose. Also, chronic overuse of sprays will irritate nasal linings, adding to the problem.

Milk is hot. Models Christie Brinkley and Naomi Campbell and actress Lauren Bacall have been seen plastered with milk mustaches in all the top fashion magazines. They're part of a major campaign to remind women up to age 50 to drink at least three glases of milk a day. To get more facts on the classic dairy drink, call 1-800-9949-6455. The milk hotline is open 24 hours a day, and callers receive a free brochure on how milk can fit into a successful weight-loss program. Runway expose, done right Isaac Mizrahi is hot, too. The designer is the documentary subject in Unzipped, Douglas Keeve's revealing, hilarious film about the fashion industry, which happens to be everything that Robert Altman's pathetic Ready to Wear is not. At the Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Keeve described Mizrahi as a "holy terror," but quickly added that they remain best friends.